


A Miraculous Splash of Colour

by starprise_entership



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: M/M, kinda follows canon but kinda diverges a bit, soulmate aus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-14
Updated: 2018-04-14
Packaged: 2019-04-22 19:50:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14315922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starprise_entership/pseuds/starprise_entership
Summary: When a person turns sixteen, black imprints appear on their body where their soulmate will touch them for the first time.Everyone hopes for the miraculous splash of colour that appears when their soulmate shows up.For Julian, getting with his soulmate means six years of long waiting after the colours appear.





	A Miraculous Splash of Colour

**Author's Note:**

> Based on this tumblr prompt.

Two tar black handprints, draped over his shoulders.

Julian pulls his shirt over his head, and starts his day.

_Finally. I finally have them. They’re supposed to arrive around my sixteenth birthday but they’re a little late. But at least they’re here. So I’m not completely different from the others._

He wasn’t going to go around talking about it at school, though, like the other kids. This was special. It was something for him and him only and he didn’t want anyone else to know this secret.

Some of the other kids had already found their soulmates. His classmates, Jessie and Tommy, were soulmates, and everyone knew that. It happened when their hands touched when they squabbled over a basketball in PE, and everyone saw the inky black turn colourful, in just an instant.

Everyone teased them for a few weeks afterwards, trying to get them together.

_But why? Why on my shoulders?_

Some days, he thinks that they appear because someone will grab his shoulders and pull him from behind. He’s considering a hypothesis, a hypothesis that maybe he shouldn’t test, that maybe those marks will turn colourful when someone pulls him out of the way of oncoming traffic.

* * *

  
”Hey, hey!” His deskmate Rachel reaches for him, and pulls him out of the way of an oncoming bicycle when they make their daily trip to school together. Instantly, Julian remembers the marks on the shoulders and reaches for her hands.

He gives a disappointed sigh - Rachel doesn’t have marks on her hands to begin with. Rachel watches him curiously, her head tilted.

“Sorry. I thought it was…” Julian shakes his head. “Never mind.”

“Your marks are on your shoulders, aren’t they.” Rachel points out, and Julian nods.

“I don’t make it as much of a big deal as everyone else, but they’re there,” says Julian, hitching up his backpack. “Promise you won’t tell?”

“Only if you won’t tell that my mark’s a scrape across my left ankle.” Rachel replies, cheekily. “I can only assume that my soulmate and I will trip over each other when we meet.”

“Good luck, then.” Julian assures. She’s a lovely girl, but not his.

“Same to you.”

* * *

  
  
“It can’t be healthy for you, sitting down for so long.” Alex drums his fingers across the flat surface of Julian’s desk. “You’ve been working on that paper for a night, two nights?’

“Two nights and fifteen cups of tea.” Julian groans, stretching his neck muscles. “But I think I’ve finally got it finished. Damn, my back is stiff.”

“You probably need a massage. Or something.” Alex suggests. “I’ve got lots of practice, don’t you worry. My mum used to need back rubs all the time.”

Julian rubs his eyes, then sits upright. He swings around in his chair to face Alex. “Wait, are you offering to give me a back rub?”

“Well, yeah?” Alex chuckles. “Unless you’ve got a problem with it.”

“You see, well,” Julian starts, before sighing and deciding that showing Alex directly is the best option. He reaches for the bottom of his shirt, tugging it up.

“Geez, Julian.”

“No, you see,” Julian says, pulling his head out of his shirt, “My marks are on my shoulders.” He glances over at Alex. “And yours are on your hands.”

“So if we put two and two together…” says Alex, his voice trailing off.

“You could just be my soulmate.” Julian finishes. “And how would I feel about that, then?”

Alex crosses his arms. “Well, I’m sorry to break it to you, but I don’t swing that way.”

Julian nods. “Understandable. So, do you still want to…”

“We could try, yes.”

Julian swivels around again, turning his back to Alex. Soon after, he feels the firm placing of Alex’s hands on his shoulders.

“No, there doesn’t seem to be anything.”

“Nothing?”

“Nothing.” Alex waves a tar-black hand in front of Julian’s face. “Sorry, mate.”

“And I’ll try not to be too disappointed.” Julian shifts slightly in his chair. “So, are you going to give me that massage you offered me?”

* * *

  
Julian doesn’t think much of Garak when he sits in the chair opposite him. He doesn’t think too much of him, either, when Garak opens his mouth and starts an exchange with him. Most importantly, he doesn’t think too much of Garak’s soulmate marks, which paint both his palms pitch-black.

Garak places his hands on Julian’s shoulders, gives a gentle squeeze, and leaves.

Julian’s breath hitches in his throat the second Garak’s hands meet the fabric of his uniform. He turns, trying to catch a glimpse of the Cardassian’s hands, but Garak is gone before he can see whether the colour of his palms have changed.

And when Julian returns back to his quarters, the truth is there, in colour.

He stands in front of the bathroom mirror, his mouth opening and closing like a goldfish.

_No. It’s impossible. It can’t be him, of all people._

_It has to be a mistake. Maybe his palms are still the way they were this afternoon. Maybe someone else put their hands on my shoulders earlier today and I just couldn’t remember the incident._

_It can’t be him._

* * *

  
When Julian sees Garak a few days later, it’s confirmed his worst fears - Garak’s palms, once tar-black, have an overlay of colour. The seven colours of the rainbow, mixing and blending into a melodious combination of colours, just like the marks on his shoulders.

They don’t discuss the marks. Instead, they discuss bilitrium and the consequences of it falling into the wrong hands.  


* * *

Garak continues to skirt around the issue for almost two years, never once bringing up that they are soulmates. And that gets Julian confused - if Garak was his soulmate, wouldn’t he be falling in love with him?

And that’s the question he’s asking himself when Garak lies on the infirmary bed, recovering from the hormonal shock the malfunctioning implant gave him.

When nobody is in the infirmary, and the room is quiet save for the beeping meter monitoring Garak’s life signs, Julian lingers by Garak’s bedside. With a hesitant, shaky hand, Julian reaches up and runs a knuckle down the side of Garak’s cheek.

“You’re my soulmate, and that’s why I’m not going to let you die. Even if you’re being a terrible friend sometimes by not telling the truth. I’ll let you know that I’ve forgiven everything you’ve done in the past. And there’s not a lot you could possibly do to convince me otherwise.”

* * *

  
”You don’t even have feelings, for your soulmate Garak,” The Lethian taunts him, claw-like talons reaching up to his face. “He doesn’t love you, and you don’t love him back.”

Julian lifts a withered hand, pointing back at the monster inside his mind. “And that’s where you’re wrong. I love him, deeply, as a friend, and I’ve never believed in destiny. If this whole soulmate nonsense doesn’t work out, I’ll find my happiness elsewhere!”

“But you’ll be dead first.”

“You’ll see.”

* * *

  
  
Julian holds his breath as Garak moves yet closer, standing chest-to-chest with him. The urge to look away is strong - there’s no way he could possibly be in such proximity to his very attractive best friend without thinking about grabbing his lapels and pulling him in. After all, it’s been confirmed, them being soulmates and all, and he should jolly well make the first move that sets their unending love in motion - _it’s been four bloody years!_

But still, Julian exercises self restraint, and he wonders if that was really a good idea afterwards.

They grow further apart after the holodeck incident.

* * *

  
The first two times they fall into bed with each other, are completely devoid of passion. Instead, desperation fills the void where passion should be in both of them and they find temporary solace in each other, not wanting to die alone in this hell of a war.

The cramped size of the Defiant doesn’t help. They’re going to run into each other anyway, and they look away from each other every time they pass each other in the corridors. Every interaction leaves a bitter afterthought like the taste of hard liquor and sometimes Julian even wonders if Garak was meant to be his soulmate after all.

Still, imagining a world where Garak isn’t by his side is impossible.

It’s tempting, but Julian doesn’t admit that he’s loved Garak almost since the very beginning.

* * *

  
He only admits it a few months later, when they’re back on the station.

Garak rushes at him and takes him into his arms and there, in the middle of Garak’s humble shop, they share their first proper kiss - one that’s fuelled by all the emotions that have been building up for the past six years, and not one driven by pure animalistic instinct and the desire to feel that someone is right there, beside them.

But they’ve been right beside each other this whole time.

They can leave it all behind now, and build a new relationship in the ashes of the old one.


End file.
